LONDON Jan 16 (Reuters) - The International Coffee Organization on Monday raised its estimate of the global coffee crop in 2011/12 to 132.4 million 60 kg bags as Ethiopia overtook Colombia as the world's number three producer.

The crop was revised up from a previous forecast of 128.6 million, largely reflecting an improved outlook in Ethiopia. It remained, however, shy of the prior season's 134.2 million bags.

The ICO, in a monthly update, put Ethiopia's 2011/12 crop at 9.80 million bags, up from a previous forecast of 6.35 million and the prior season's 7.50 million.

Ethiopia prides itself as the birthplace of coffee. Some 15 million smallholder farmers grow the crop, mostly in the forested highlands in the huge country's west and southwest.

Brazil and Vietnam are the world's top two producers.

Colombia's crop in 2011/12 was seen at 8.50 million bags, barely changed from the prior season's 8.52 million. It produced around 12.5 million bags in 2007/08 before adverse weather and a tree replacement programme curbed production. (Reporting by Nigel Hunt, editing by Jane Baird)